ENERGY
Emera to buy Teco Energy
Canadian energy and services company Emera Inc on Friday said it is to buy Teco Energy Inc, an electric and gas utility that does business in Florida and New Mexico, for about US$6.48 billion. Emera said it is to pay US$27.55 per share of Teco Energy, a premium of about 31 percent over Friday’s closing stock price. The companies valued the deal at US$10.4 billion including debt. The companies expect to complete the sale by the middle of next year. They said Emera is to continue Teco’s efforts to sell its coal business and plans to complete that sale by the time its acquisition of Teco closes.
SMARTPHONES
BlackBerry to buy company
BlackBerry Ltd on Friday said it is to make another security-related acquisition, buying Good Technology Corp for US$425 million in cash. The Canadian company said Good Technology will help it offer a unified secure platform for mobile devices that runs on any operating system. It said Good Technology has about US$160 million in annual revenue, while BlackBerry has reported about US$3 billion in revenue in its past four fiscal quarters. The company expects to complete the purchase by the end of November.
PETROLEUM
Peru gives state firm rights
The Peruvian Congress has awarded state oil company Petroleos del Peru SA rights to develop the country’s largest oil field, overriding a contract previously awarded to Canadian Pacific Exploration and Production Corp. Lawmakers voted by an overwhelming majority in favor of the action late on Thursday, despite the government’s strong objections. The Canadian company was supposed to take over operations at the field for a two-year period beginning on Sunday last week, replacing Argentina’s Pluspetrol, whose 15 year concession was expiring.
BANKING
Banco do Brasil deals grow
Banco do Brasil SA, Latin America’s biggest bank by assets, said its pipeline of mergers and initial public offerings (IPO) has grown to about 30 companies since the bank restructured its advisory business about a year-and-a-half ago. Three of the deals are IPOs, Brasilia-based head of wholesale business Mauricio Maurano said in an interview in Sao Paulo on Friday.
MINING
Freeport reviews strategy
Freeport-McMoRan Inc is working with JPMorgan Chase & Co to review its strategy after billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn bought a stake in the company, people familiar with the matter said. Freeport, the world’s biggest publicly traded copper producer, might consider options including cost cuts and capital reduction plans, as well as asset sales, the people said. Freeport’s discussions with its advisers are at an early stage and no decisions have been made, the people said.
PUBLISHING
McGraw-Hill to go public
Educational content maker McGraw-Hill Education plans to go public. Best known as a publisher of textbooks and instructional materials, the company is now investing heavily in developing digital content and technology. It filed for an IPO that was valued at up to US$100 million, according to a form filed on Friday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained